The 2019 film Hustlers, inspired by a true story, and headlined by a top-tier cast, was widely praised for its depiction of “female empowerment” and solidarity. However, behind the glamorous facade, the film romanticizes the commercial sex trade and overlooks the deeper issues of exploitation that frequently underlie it. By showcasing a world of designer clothes and financial triumphs, Hustlers contributes to the normalization of the sex trade, obscuring the realities many people in prostitution face: inconsistent pay, violence, and lack of control. The film glosses over the sex trade’s dependence on male power and reinforces myths about prostitution being “empowering,” instead of exploring how deeply entangled this system often is with poverty, coercion, and the commodification of women’s bodies.
This disconnect becomes particularly clear when examining the film’s plot more closely. On its surface, the plot follows Ramona (played by Jennifer Lopez) and Destiny (played by Constance Wu), two dancers at a New York strip club who, after the 2008 financial crash, begin drugging and scamming wealthy Wall Street clients by running up their credit cards. The characters justify their actions by pointing to the unchecked greed of their targets: “These guys stole from everybody . . . and not one of them went to jail.” This perspective misses out on the perfect opportunity to dig deeper and expose the lack of accountability of sex buyers. Wealthy and powerful sex buyers often act with impunity, exploiting legal loopholes and operating under the mindset of “your body, my choice.” These buyers, predominantly men with disposable income, perpetuate a system that thrives on the exploitation of marginalized individuals, particularly women of color. Sex buyers frequently commodify women by virtue of exchanging money for access to the bodies, often ignoring clear signs of trafficking and coercion. By focusing on the women’s actions without scrutinizing the demand that fuels such exploitation, the film overlooks the broader societal structures that enable and sustain the commercial sex trade. These structures are central to understanding how the industry functions.
While the film touches on the blurry boundary between performance and coercion, it stops short of fully confronting the complexities it raises, opting instead for a more glamorous, and therefore palatable, to a mass audience.. It highlights the money the women make and the luxury they buy as part of a “female empowerment” narrative. However, it rushes past the more uncomfortable realities that underlie their success. For example, when Destiny is pressured by a client to touch him sexually, he offers her $100, then $300, but she later finds out that he ultimately had paid her just $60. When the film cuts to her present-day interview with the reporter—Elizabeth, a character based on the real-life journalist who wrote the 2015 New York Magazine article that inspired the film—she is seen crying as she says “you don’t have to believe me. I’m used to people not believing me.” These moments reveal the vulnerability and lack of agency experienced by many women in the commercial sex trade, often from being marginalized. However, the film then moves on, choosing to spotlight the women’s savvy over their struggle.
Moreover, the film’s presentation obscures the exploitative conditions that pushed these women to such extremes in the first place. Early in the film, we see Destiny’s earnings slashed by club owners who take a hefty cut—first a 40% cut, and then an additional $20 “tip.” The message is clear: even in an industry often described as “empowering,” women not only sell their bodies to survive but are also forced to continually “pay” to stay in the game. The transaction is never truly theirs. Despite generating a large portion of the venue’s revenue, they must also tip out staff and security, meaning much of their income is diverted to other individuals before they even get to take anything home, thus making financial autonomy largely illusory.
Soon after, Ramona, Destiny, and the other women begin “fishing”—bringing in men from bars to their club. As Ramona puts it: “The game is rigged, and it does not reward people who play by the rules.” But by focusing on revenge and material success of the women, the film risks glorifying a system that often preys on the very women it claims to empower. By blurring the lines between empowerment and exploitation, the film normalizes the structural inequalities, including the gendered labor and systemic misogyny, that forced these women into such desperate choices in the first place.
Although the film emphasizes the material success associated with ‘fishing,’ it ultimately underscores the economic hardships that compel the women to act out of necessity in the first place. In one scene, Destiny explains “I don’t wanna be dependent on anybody. Like ever. I just wanna be able to take care of my grandma for the rest of her life.” Similarly, Ramona, while working a retail job, asks to leave early on Fridays to pick up her child. Her boss replies coldly, “Am I the father? . . . then why should I give a sh*t.” When asked if she has a nanny, she explains she cannot afford one. He insists she work more hours to make more money—another catch-22 situation. It’s a telling moment that highlights how traditional jobs can, and often do, fail to support women, especially single mothers, which results in them turning toward the commercial sex trade to make ends meet.
At its core, Hustlers is about women trying to gain control in a system that profits off their bodies while offering little in return. There are fleeting moments that suggest the toll this takes—such as Destiny sharing with Ramona, “I just want to be independent, not need anybody.” But again, these glimpses of economic vulnerability and lack of choice are quickly overshadowed by money, loyalty, and vengeance.
Ultimately, Hustlers offers a narrative of female solidarity and survival on its face, but it does so by romanticizing an industry rooted in inequality, objectification, and commodification of women. It touches upon exploitation without fully engaging it, allowing empowerment to take center stage while the darker truths appear occasionally in the background. What’s left out is the full weight of the harm that many persons in prostitution face, which cannot be fully understood without acknowledging the profound power imbalance at play.
As part of this series, the CSE Institute will continue to explore how films like Hustlers contribute to a narrative that distorts public understanding of commercial sexual exploitation through sanitization, normalization, glamorization, and sensationalization. This blog was written by 1L blogger Amisha Mirchandani.
All views expressed herein are personal to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law or of Villanova University.